By Dave Shedloski
As a youngster the golf course was her summer “babysitter.” As a teenager, she competed in the state amateur in New York against Dottie Pepper, and she consumed women’s golf on television whenever she could find it. Though she played the game in high school—she opted for soccer and ice hockey at the collegiate level at Princeton University—though she devoted her senior thesis to the history of women’s golf. More recently, she has won her club championship five times.

Don’t let her current title, athletic director at her alma mater, Princeton, mislead. Mollie Marcoux Samaan, the new LPGA commissioner, easily possesses a more thorough and impressive golf pedigree than any of the eight individuals who preceded her.

A love for the game isn’t all the wife and mother of three children brings to the role. She is competitive, and she has leadership experience, and she knows how to deal with corporate sponsors. She also can connect with athletes because she was one herself. But it is her lifelong devotion to golf that makes Marcoux Samaan a compelling choice to succeed Mike Whan in leading the top women’s golf organization in the world.

“My life would absolutely … I’d never be sitting here if I didn’t have some success in sports and developed a confidence in my own abilities to perform under pressure and to handle really difficult situations,” Marcoux Samaan said during a Zoom meeting with the media Tuesday afternoon. “I credit everything to my role in sports, but I think golf, too, even though I didn’t play golf at a really high level … but I think that experience from a career perspective, you know, being able to be competent and go out and play with anyone and become competent in playing with anyone has helped me in my career every step of the way.”

Marcoux Samaan, a five-time club champion at North Fork C.C. in Cutchogue, N.Y., where she carries a 7.4 handicap index, got started in the game the way a lot of youngsters might—by following an older sibling, in this case, her brother. Her parents didn’t play, but when he began going to the local course in Ithaca, N.Y., with friends, Marcoux Samaan, then 12 years old, wanted to tag along. “I was hooked from that moment.”

Her negotiating skills proved formidable even then. She talked her parents into paying the $45 junior membership fee for the summer at Newman Golf Course, “the best babysitter they could ever imagine,” she said. They would drop her off at 8 in the morning, and she might play up to 36 holes in a day. At 14, she nearly won the women’s city championship, losing in a playoff.

While the self-described “sports nut” was a four-time All-Ivy League selection in ice hockey, when it came time to write her senior thesis, golf beckoned her yet again. Her paper was titled, “The Social Construction of Sport and Gender: A History of Women’s Golf from 1895 to 1955.”

“The advice that I got was write on something that you’re passionate about, write on something that you care about because it’s such a big project; it’s a hundred and some pages and you spend your whole senior year writing it,” said the history major, who graduated cum laude in 1991. “So you might as well do it on something that you care about. And of course, the thing I care about most is sports. And golf has served a very critical social role for women for many, many years.

“So I came upon this idea of writing the history of women in golf. So, it was sort of mostly a history of women in society, but I use golf as an example of how women were living in society in the various eras.”

Interestingly, Marcoux Samaan reread that thesis when she was preparing for her first interview with the LPGA. But, of course, it’s this current era that she will help shape. In addition to her golf and sports background, Marcoux Samaan brings fundraising experience from her seven years as Princeton’s athletic director and corporate leadership experience during 19 years at Chelsea Piers Management, the company that owns and operates two world-class amateur sports complexes, Chelsea Piers New York and Chelsea Piers Connecticut.

Upon hearing of Marcoux Samaan’s resume, LPGA veteran Angela Stanford offered this hot take: “I’m not sure how to properly phrase this, but she sounds like a badass.”

Denise Applewhite, Princeton

Marcoux Samaan inherits from Whan an organisation on sound footing but with potential “for tremendous growth,” she said. And her abilities to tap into that potential made her the unanimous choice of the LPGA search committee.

“One of the things that impressed me the most about Molly was her ability to build relationships with a wide variety of different stakeholders at Princeton, whether it was the university officials, the big donors, the alumni, the coaches, the athletes,” said Diane Gulyas, Chair of the LPGA Board of Directors and the search committee. “When I think about our universe of stakeholders, I honestly think she’s going to be awesome with our sponsors. And I think that will lead to even better relationships growing relationships with our sponsors. That of course always leads to more opportunities and bigger purses for our players. Um, I think she’s really going to help us as we think about how to increase our fan engagement in new and creative ways, bringing in new technology, different ways of thinking about fan engagement.”

“From her first interview, I could just see that she is down to earth authentic, someone that cared deeply for her athletes at school,” said World Golf Hall of Famer Juli Inkster. “I think she’s going to be a great players’ commissioner. She’s gritty, she’s smart, but she keeps it simple. Her vision for where the LPGA wants, wants to go. I think she’s the perfect person to take us there. I know it’s probably not the greatest term, but she’s a jock, and she loves sports and she’s been in a man’s world … knows how to collaborate and bring the LPGA forward.”

“I just think at this moment,” Marcoux Samaan said, “what could be better than sponsoring the LPGA and, sort of, how we’re all working towards providing the most diverse and inclusive environments within our companies and to, to be able to use the LPGA as a platform and a commitment to that equity, I think is a huge opportunity.”

And the opportunity to be at the helm of the LPGA at this moment, Marcoux Samaan said, is bigger than just a job growing purse size or maximizing exposure for golf’s best female players. “This is a remarkable opportunity and a remarkable responsibility to get up every day and be able to try to change the world through golf,” she said.

“I’ve always believed that sports have the power to change the world,” she added. “And I think in this moment in time with, you know, just such tremendous positive energy around women’s sports, around women’s leadership, around sort of society’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. I think that we at the LPGA have just this unique platform to change lives for the better.”

See, it comes back to golf. For Marcoux Samaan, it always comes back to the golf.

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By John Strege
It is not a victory lap, precisely, though a strong argument could be made that Mike Whan’s tenure as LPGA Commissioner warrants one. But he is here in this desert community to oversee the ANA Inspiration for the last time, and the exit interviews have begun.

A man who can speak more words per minute than anyone this side of an auctioneer spent 25 minutes with the media on Wednesday, answering questions about his 11-year tenure generally and the growth of the female game on the professional and grass-roots level.

“I think the coolest thing about this,” he said, noting he had just run into Shirley Spork, one of the LPGA’s founders, “the thing that Shirley and the rest would be most proud of is what we’ve done for the future. The future of this game is so female, not just here in America, but all around the world. Events like this are what matters to young girls.

“I don’t think, if you said 12 years ago to anybody, the future of the game, junior golf, was going to look almost 40 per cent female, back when we were in that 13-, 14-, 15-per cent range. This is important. We’re leaving this game pretty female. I’m leaving this game a lot more female than when I got here, thanks to a lot of people that made me look good.

“I don’t think these women will have daughters that will have the experience my mom had trying to join the game in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. They should be proud of that, and we should be proud of that.”

Paying homage to the founders of the LPGA, including the formation of a new tournament, the Founders Cup, will be part of his legacy when he leaves this job to become the CEO of the USGA this summer. And it began, even before he had been introduced as the commissioner in late 2009, with words of advice from another founder, Louise Suggs, delivered over a drink in a hotel bar during the LPGA Tour Championship.

“She said, ‘Kid, keep it simple.’ Then she went on to talk about an hour,” Whan said. “Nothing she said was simple. She talked about all the aspects of the LPGA. In the end, I said to her, ‘Louise, when you say keep it simple, what do you mean?’ ”

Suggs gestured to a group of players and said, “Mike, it’s just this simple. Give them a better place to play.”

“I knew what she meant. It wasn’t courses and purses and TV, but all of them. She said give them a better place to be. Care about the future. It caught me off guard. As a brand new commissioner in 2009, I’m like, What do you mean? She said, ‘We have a tour today because we cared about the founders.’ Make them care about the future.’

“She said, ‘Get the boys involved.’ What do you mean get the boys involved? ‘You know, the boys. The guys that run all the boys’ stuff.’ What are you talking about?”

Suggs was talking about the PGA Tour, the PGA of America, the USGA, the R&A. “She called them the boys,” Whan said. “‘Get the boys involved. They’ll help.’

“If you think about it, KPMG, PGA, U.S. Women’s Open, LPGA, USGA, Girls Golf, the European Tour, I really think the boys, as she called them, are involved.”

Suggs also told him to be “a good and honest man,” that his family comes first, but to look at the LPGA players as his extended family.

“Juli Inkster said something to me very similar, which is we can handle honesty. We just can’t handle lack of honesty out here,” Whan said.

“The next thing for the next commissioner, keep it simple. Give them a place to play. Make the future involved for them. Keep the boys involved. And when you’re talking about your family, be pretty honest. At the time she said it, I didn’t think any of it was powerful, but I was smart enough to write it down. I think that’s a good way for me to exit.”

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By Keely Levins
After serving 11 years as the commissioner of the LPGA Tour, Mike Whan announced he’ll be stepping down from the position in 2021, though no official date for his leaving has been set. Whan’s tenure with the LPGA is the longest of any LPGA commissioner.

The announcement comes after a trying year in which the LPGA was on a long hiatus due to the spread of COVID-19, though the tour was able to play its shortened schedule for bigger purses and saw 30-percent growth in television viewership. Heading into the 2021 season, which begins Jan. 21 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., the tour looks forward to a schedule of 34 events, with $76.45 million in prize money—the most in LPGA history. Because of all this, Whan says that though he’s leaving the tour after an unprecedented global pandemic, he knows he’s leaving the tour in a good place.

RELATED: LPGA Tour announces ambitious 2021 schedule

“I simply wouldn’t leave the LPGA if I thought the future was uncertain or not trending straight up,” Whan said in a letter to his staff, tour members and sponsors. “In fact, even after the challenges we faced in 2020, the LPGA has never been more financially secure, deeper in leadership talent, or more anchored by passionate, diverse sponsors from all around the world. The LPGA is poised for even greater heights; and as such, I’m excited to hand the baton to the next leader and become their biggest supporter.”

When people associated with the LPGA talk about Whan, they cite many positives, including the growth the tour experienced in purse size, television time, sponsorships, and new events. Beyond the tour, LPGA USGA Girls Golf has seen enormous growth while Whan has been commissioner, pushing the percentage of girls playing golf closer to Whan’s goal of 50 percent of junior golfers being female.

“Mike has absolutely been the right leader at the right time,” Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, the LPGA Tour’s Player President, said. “He rebuilt the tour—and then reimagined its future—by bringing new events, new sponsors and a new value proposition around diversity and inclusion to the LPGA.”

Whan’s connection to the tour and its players was on public display when he took to the course at the Drive On Championship at Lake Oconee as an on-course reporter for Golf Channel. The ease of conversation he had with players made his level of engagement with and knowledge of players obvious. That’s been one of his strengths as commissioner.

Now, the tour has the tall task of finding someone to replace him.

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By Keely Levins
The 2019 LPGA schedule has been announced, and there’s a lot for the tour to look forward to. There are 33 events this year, not including the Solheim Cup which will be held at the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles. Over the course of the season, over $70 million in prize money will be available to win, which is over $5 million more than last year. The USGA has not confirmed the U.S. Women’s Open purse yet, but it’s believed to be over $5 million in 2019. Three other majors, the ANA Inspiration, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the Evian Championship all have increased purses for 2019.

The biggest jump in purse size comes from the CME Group Tour Championship. Instead of giving the $1 million bonus to the player who accrued the most points throughout the season, the top 60 players on the CME points list will be playing the championship to win a $1.5 million winner’s check, the biggest in women’s golf.

“We are in one of the most exciting periods of time in LPGA history,” said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan. “One look at our 2018 season shows the breadth of global talent on our tour, and I have no doubt that 2019 will continue this upward trend.”

There are four new events on the schedule, with the first two events of the season being two of them. First, the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions presented by Insurance Office of America will start the campaign in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The LPGA season used to begin in the Bahamas. The second event of the season is a bit different. The Vic Open, held from February 7-10, is a joint event with the European Tour. Players from both circuits will be playing the event at Beach Golf Links in Barwon Heads, Australia. For the first time in a professional golf tournament, men and women will be competing on the same course for the same amount of prize money.

Another highlight on the schedule includes the much-anticipated move of the Evian Championship. After battling bad weather in the late September slot, the major, which is hosted in France near Lake Geneva, will now be played during the last week of July. There’s a change to another major this year as well: the Women’s British Open has a new title sponsor, with AIG taking over from Ricoh.

One stop on the tour remains unannounced, it will be the penultimate tournament of the season. At the completion of the final tournament of the season, the CME Group Tour Championship, there will be a new $1 million bonus awarded. The Aon Risk Reward Challenge is new this year and will award $1 million to the player on the LPGA and the PGA who plays the best on the most strategically difficult holes throughout the season.

You’ll be able to see the 2019 events in action via the 450 hours of broadcast time on the Golf Channel and network television.

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By John Strege
Carol Mann stood six-foot-three, or five-feet-15, as she liked to say, but she stood out in golf for altogether other reasons.

A World Golf Hall of Fame member, Mann won 38 LPGA tournaments, including two major championships — the Women’s Western Open in 1964 and the U.S. Women’s Open a year later.

Mann, 77, died at her home in the Woodlands, Texas, on Monday. She leaves behind a remarkable legacy as a player, instructor, businesswoman, television broadcaster, LPGA president, author and an extraordinary ambassador of the game.

“It is always difficult to lose a member of your family,” LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan said in a statement posted on Twitter. “Carol Mann was a tremendous competitor, but an even more amazing person. She was special in every way and she certainly left the game and the LPGA better than she found it. Our thoughts are with her family and friends.”

Mann was a native of Baltimore, where as a child she took ballet lessons until she outgrew it, literally.

“I loved it,” she told Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun. “When I was eight years old, I outgrew the mirror in the little-kids ballet studio. Do you know how that makes a little kid feel, when you’ve grown past the measuring sticks? I had to find some use for my body other than just standing around.”

She tried a few other sports before landing on golf, under the tutelage Bill Strausbaugh Jr. at the Country Club of Maryland. When the family moved to Chicago, she eventually became a protege of legendary teacher Manuel de la Torre.

Mann was 19 when she turned professional in 1960 and she joined the LPGA a year later. Her first victory came in the Women’s Western Open, at the time considered a major championship.

Her best year was 1968, when she won 10 tournaments, tying with Kathy Whitworth for the tour lead. She won the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average that year.

Mann’s final victory came at the Civitan Open in 1975. By then she already had begun moving on to other pursuits, having become the LPGA president in 1973, a position she held through 1976.

In 1977, she began her broadcast career with NBC, for which she worked PGA Tour, Senior PGA Tour and LPGA events.

She also started a golf hospitality business, partnering Fortune 500 companies with PGA Tour and Senior Tour events, wrote a book, “The 19th Hole: Favorite Golf Stories,” conducted clinics and worked as a special consultant and ambassador for the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Mann is in the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, the Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 2008, the PGA of America honored her with its First Lady of Golf award, given to a woman who has made significant contributions to the promotion of the game of golf.

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By Keely Levins
For the third consecutive Solheim Cup, Juli Inkster will serve as the U.S. captain. In 2019, the Americans will have Inkster at the helm as they take on the European team, led by Catriona Matthew, at Gleneagles in Scotland. This is the first time in Solheim Cup history that the U.S. has employed the same captain in three straight events.

It’s easy to see why the U.S. team is breaking tradition for Inkster: She led her team to victories the last two times she captained, mounting a huge comeback in Germany in 2015 and winning again handily in Des Moines in 2017.

“We wanted to find a captain that, when it gets really tight, who can keep it loose. Who can keep it fun. Who can get them to play their best,” LPGA commissioner Michael Whan said at the announcement.

In going through potential candidates, Whan said that the committee realised they had their own version of Bill Belichick on Team USA.

Inkster, who played in nine Solheim Cups, has definitely proven she has the ability to keep things fun. The World Golf Hall of Fame member was dancing on the first tee in Des Moines, rallying cheers from the crowd and dolling out hugs and high fives to her team. But she also has an uncanny ability to say the right thing, to the right player, at the right moment. When her top player, Lexi Thompson, was 4 down after four holes to Anna Nordqvist in their Sunday singles match in Des Montes last August, Inkster appeared on the fifth hole, put her arm around Thompson and told her to play her own game. Thompson surged back, and ultimately halved the match as the U.S. team took the Cup for a second straight year.

“I enjoy working with the girls,” Inkster said at the announcement. “The chemistry and the comaraderie of team sports—it’s not all about winning. It’s about the chemistry and the bonding you develop.”

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Among the points Whan discussed was the tour planning on playing 35 tournaments in 2018, the same number that was announced at the start of the 2017 season. Next year’s slate, however, will likely include the addition of second Hawaii stop, movement of the New Zealand tournament from the fall to off the calendar in 2018 to accommodate a move back on, and to the spring, in 2019.

“We will lose a couple events and add a couple,” said Whan, starting that the changes will help with the flow of the season from a traveling standpoint.

Arguably the most interesting schedule change Whan mentioned involved the potential of moving the Evian Championship out of its September slot and push it earlier into the summer to avoid the weather difficulties that have plagued the event since it became a major in 2013. This past September, rain forced the tour to cancel the first round after it had begun and shorted the event to 54 holes for the second time in five years, a decision Whan made that drew criticism from players, fans and media alike.

“We will get Evian back to a summer date,” Whan said. “It may not be in ’18, but certainly by ’19.”

Whan was forthright about the issues with the tournament, pinning the blame on himself in terms of having increased the field size too quickly and moving the event move from July to September in the first place. In September, the area experiences more rain and has significantly less daylight to play with.

“The challenges we’ve faced are man-made,” Whan said. “And I’m the man who made them.”

Additionally, Whan said that the LPGA could still be involved in an ownership stake in the Ladies European Tour some time down the road. He, along with the European Tour and the R&A proposed in September a plan to take over the struggling tour—which had five events cancelled during the 2017 season—but that LET officials were not prepared to hand over ownership of the tour. They instead wanted to try to find a solution where they continued to oversee the operations themselves.

“We agreed to reconvene in the late spring,” Whan said. “We will see where things stand then.”

And as for the partnership with CME and the year-long Race to the Globe competition, Whan hinted that the current structure is likely to stay for a while.

“Next week, we will have some news about the CME Globe,” Whan said. “We will be racing for the Globe for a lot of years in the future.”

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By Keely Levins
LPGA officials announced on Tuesday that the Alisports LPGA tournament, scheduled to be played in Shanghai from Oct. 5-8, has been cancelled.

According to LPGA commissioner Mike Whan, the tournament was unable to successful obtain permit approval from the local district government to hold the event.

“The hardest part about this news is that we have a title sponsor, a tournament operator, a TV production group and a host venue all set to go,” What said in a statement. “However, in China, sporting events of this nature cannot take place without approvals at multiple levels—and the local approval was denied.”

Whan did not go on to detail exactly why the event was denied approval by the local government.

Previously, the tournament, started in 2013, was played outside of Beijing and was known as the Reignwood LPGA Classic, but this season it was announced that it was moving to Shanghai.

The event has been on the schedule since the beginning of the year, and was supposed to have a $2.1 million purse. In-Kyung Kim of South Korea won the title in 2016

Though the last-minute cancelation is disappointing, currently the plan is for the event to return in 2018.

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